Welcome to another episode of Ask Wheels! As
I'm sure you've seen, my review of Mugen
Souls is now up. The game just had an
awful battle system that was made worse by
the fact your are constantly forced into
more battles by the need to grind. Oh well,
the new Ys game is really good!
Hopefully that will make it to the US at
some point. Also now that I know it exists,
I really want to see Atelier Totori
on the Vita localized.

Anyway, on to your letters!

The Letters

Tales of Tales about
Tales

‏I love Tales Sorry my friend.

Nintendo not only keeps its portfolio
diverse, but they've always appreciated the
rpg lovin we NEED

-Alan

Wheels

(He's
referring to last week when I
said that the Tales of the
WorldRadiant
Mythology games were not
very good) I love Tales as
well, but the Radiant
Mythology games simply
are not very good entries in the
series. They rely on fan service
to try and cover up a series of
generic dungeon crawlers. I mean
I'm all for a Tales game
where you can make a party of
your favorite characters, but
they could easily do that in a
far more interesting series of
games.

I agree, Nintendo does a great
job of keeping a diverse
portfolio. They even have some
games to fit this need that
we've never seen much of, like
that Heracles series.
Of course most notable from
Nintendo would be the Fire
Emblem and Golden Sun
series, along with the various Mario
RPGs. They've released a lot of
fantastic RPGs and look to
releases more in the future.
Arguments about their systems
aside I think we can all agree
that Nintendo knows how to make
a good game!

Point

Hey Wheels,

I have noticed that you are not a fan of the
Legend of Dragoon (understatement of
the year?), and I am aware that this is the
case for lots of people. I thought I would
share my reasons for loving this game in an
attempt to offer some reasons for its
popularity, in spite of the obvious issues.
When I first played the game I was in my
adolescent rpg craze, and basically playing
every rpg I could get my hands on. Dragoon
came late on the ps1 cycle and I snagged it
as soon as I could. There are two reasons
that I enjoyed the game at it's release, and
I think they are still the reasons I like it
now. First is the addition combat system.
Frankly, I downloaded the psn copy and
jumped in over ten years later and I still
loved the balance of difficulty. There is
something about quick time button presses in
a battle system that I love (my all time
favorite series is Shadow Hearts,
skip the third game though). It makes every
random battle engaging. I'm sure many people
disagree though! The second reason would be
the fantastic cut scenes. For a ps1 title, Dragoon
sports some fmv scenes that are still a
blast to watch. They easily rival any of the
scenes from the Final Fantasy games
on the ps1, and I thought they added
something special. That said, the story is
somewhat forgettable, and clearly stole
everything it possibly could from FFVII.
Haha it's practically copyright
infringement! My only question would be if
you know of any titles that utilize a quick
time button press/turn based combat system
that you could recommend. I always enjoy a
new twist on the traditional formula.

Anyway, best wishes from a Dragoon
lover.

joe

Wheels

I
can see why you might possibly
like it, it's just that
quicktime silliness wasn't
enough to get me interested in Dragoon's
battle system. The story and
everything else never really
grabbed me, so it kind of kills
the strength of the FMVs, you
know what I mean? I just
felt like the battles had too
few options and thus no
strategy. That said, there are
some other RPGs that use
quicktime type events to keep
battles engaging. The most
notable would of course be all
of the Mario RPGs.
These games from the start have
used this as way to keep combat
interesting. The best is in the
Mario and Luigi series
where you can actual jump and
use hammers to dodge and counter
enemies in real time. There's
also The Last Remnant
and Crimson Gem Saga
which both use button presses
like that in combat. The best
example I could think of would
have to be Ar Tonelico 2.
In that game, combat has attack
and defense phases. During
defense, you have to time button
presses to different attacks
using two buttons, one for each
of the two magic users you
defend in battle. I'd highly
recommend you give it a try!

Maybe someday I'll give Dragoon
another chance...

Counterpoint

Dear Wheels,

Legend of Dragoon sucks. I can't tell
you how many people I've heard laud it as
the "Best. RPG. Ever." I don't get it. I
played it back in the day, and while I
certainly enjoyed it, it was even more
linear than FFXIII. It literally had
two side quests. The best reason I've heard
for why it sits at the pinnacle of PSOne era
RPGs? "LOL, dragons." Please, if you want
dragons go pray at the alter of Capcom for Breath
of Fire VI...until then, put Legend
of Dragoon where it belongs,
sandwiched between FFXIII and Quest
64.

-CofLSilk

Wheels

Yikes,
you seem to bashing FFXIII
there, which happens to be a
game I think is just the bees
knees. I also have no problem
with a game being linear. That
said, I also hated the game when
I played it back in the day, so
I know exactly what you're
talking about. I don't really
want Breath of Fire VI
though, what I really want is Dragon
Quarter 2. Anyway, Legend
of Dragoon seems to be the
very definition of a" love it or
hate it" game, so I don't think
one side will ever agree with
the other. Suikoden II
is still the best PS1 RPG in my
book!

Zero Logic

@AskWheels uh, uhm, Why do people hate X-Com
Terror from the Deep so much? Once
patched its a near perfect game!

Wheels

I dunno, no offense to PC gamers but
they can be a bit picky for silly
reasons at times. Many would
probably bash the heck out of an FPS
game just for not having dedicated
server clients for multiplayer as an
example. I wouldn't read too much
into it. I'll bet more people
actually enjoy it than complain
about it!

@AskWheels Why haven't all your readers
bought the new XCOM? Do they hate
awesome games?

Wheels

Well, you don't know that they
haven't, do you? I loved the demo
and plan on getting it in the near
future, and we encourage anyone who
loves tactical games to do the same.
Plus it's developed by Firaxis, the
Civilization guys, so it's
incredibly hard to resist.

@AskWheels When are you going to LP
something? Seriously...

Wheels

I tried that once man, I couldn't
really get into it. It was just too
tedious for me and I didn't much
enjoy it. I'd consider doing a video
LP though at some point if I can get
the right equipment. That could be
fun!

@AskWheels Is there anything exciting coming
out this fall? Or have all the good games (Borderlands
2, Dishonored, XCOM)
been released?

Wheels

Well on consoles there are still a
few big releases coming, mostly Assassin's
Creed III, Halo 4, and
Epic Mickey 2. On portables
we've got some great RPGs coming in
Persona 4 on Vita, two
interesting looking Ragnarok games,
and of course a new Paper Mario.
So not a ton of things, but some
interesting titles! Plus Etrian
Odyssey IV will be waiting for
us in 2013.

@AskWheels How many more questions do you
need?

Wheels

One more would be cool!

@AskWheels Why do some many RPG fans obsess
over numbers? I don't know about them but
Excel the game isn't that exciting to me..

-falselogic

Wheels

I couldn't really find a good
explanation for this, other than to
say that it doesn't always apply to
all RPG fans. Some mostly play them
for stories, and don't want much
outside of some simple combat. I
think it must come from tabletop
RPGs, finding ways to build the best
character and things like that. Of
course RPG fans could all just be
math geeks? I'm certainly guilty of
this as I've spent time devouring
weapon stat tables for Dark
Souls. It's a mystery to
everyone!